


Interlude

by CSIGurlie07



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23880940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSIGurlie07/pseuds/CSIGurlie07
Summary: Sometimes, a fight ends simply when a warrior lacks the strength to strike again. This is a glimpse of what that moment might look like for Lena and Kara.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 15
Kudos: 410





	Interlude

It would be a long time before Kara understood what compelled her to set down on Lena’s L-Corp balcony. She’d long sworn off uninvited visits when the previous one ended with flinty eyes and walls too tall for even a Kryptonian to climb. 

Perhaps it was the single lamp burning, casting lonely shadows across the executive suite. Perhaps it was the mug of warm tea Lena curled her hands around, instead of coffee or liquor.

It wouldn’t be until months later that Kara could identify the slump in Lena’s shoulders as the cause; a quiet that enveloped her in a bubble of defeat not unlike the one slowly forming around Kara herself. It was the recognized-- even subconsciously-- apathy of a battle lost by attrition, an exhaustion too weary to keep up the fight.

Kara landed on the balcony with enough noise to alert Lena to her presence, and watched as Lena’s shoulders tightened, but did not turn before resuming their uncharacteristic slouch. 

It was as close to an invitation as she was going to get.

With a quiet breath, Kara opened the door and let herself inside. Still, Lena didn’t look at her, and Kara lingered, unwilling to intrude any further until she was certain this was a visit Lena was willing to endure. 

She wasn’t certain her heart could withstand another rebuff if she wasn’t.

But even being this close sparked a warmth in Kara’s chest. The last time she'd been in close proximity to Lena had been just after the crises that merged all of reality, when the walls Lena had erected around herself had made the distance feel cavernous. This time, nothing stood between them but air. There was nothing to keep Kara from seeing the slack of Lena’s features, and how the lack of focus in her gaze seemed a surrender all its own.

Kara waited, but Lena didn’t speak. Finally, Kara gripped the edge of her cape tightly to steady herself, and took the plunge.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Lena still said nothing. The silence stretched agonizingly thin, and in the end, Kara wasn’t strong enough to bear it. Without another word, she turned to leave.

“I miss my mother.”

Kara paused. Looking back at the profile of a woman beaten, she felt her heart seize. The words echoed the same truth lurking in her soul; the dark, deep, shameful wish of a girl wanting to ask the specter of her infallible mother how to fix the greatest wrong she’s ever committed.

Her hand slipped from the door, and she took a single step into the room.

“Not _her,_ ” Lena elaborated, gaze still engrossed by the steam lifting from caramel-tinted tea. “I don’t even remember what she looked like. What I miss is the way she made me feel. Even that young, I remember feeling so _loved_. I was only four-- I hadn’t done anything to earn it. I didn’t deserve it. It was simply there, all around me, like... sunlight on a summer hill.”

A pale shoulder shrugged, accompanied by the slanting of Lena’s lips as she dismissed the memory as heavily as it came. She took a deep breath, and Kara waited, listening.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find that again,” Lena said. “I’d never be able to earn it, and no one else had ever offered it. But you did.”

Lena’s voice cracked, and in the tiny fracture of sound, Kara felt herself falling, descending once more into the pits of her guilt, the self-loathing for causing a hurt so palpable.

“Don’t you understand what you did? You made me believe I found that love again, when all along you were withholding the very core of yourself. I know--” Lena headed off the protest that lifted in reflex to Kara’s lips, held there by an admission of Lena’s own-- “there were things I may have done, or not done, that would have made it difficult for you to tell me the truth. But for all my mistakes… 

“I showed you the deepest parts of myself, Kara. I confessed to you all of my sins. What I don’t understand is _why?”_

Finally, _finally_ Lena’s gaze lifted to meet Kara’s, tears shaking free when Lena blinked, lips trembling.

“Why did you let me believe you were offering affection without condition, knowing you were just one slip from tearing it all away? Don’t you understand how _cruel_ that is?”

Kara didn’t know what to say, even if she could speak around the lump in her throat. She had no rebuttal, no excuse that would relieve the weight of the guilt hanging around her neck. Only her hunger for Lena’s attention allowed her to hold the tremulous gaze that searched for answers she couldn’t give.

After a moment, Lena looked away with a shrug. “But who am I to talk?”

She spread her hands across her desk, a broad gesture to encompass the office around her.

“Here I am, exactly where I started: stuck at a company bearing my name with no real power within it. Only this time I don’t have Jack and his research to save me when Lex inevitably cuts me loose.” 

She huffed bitterly, pushing the comfort of her tea aside as she leaned back in her chair, her features souring as she turned a skeptical look on Kara. 

“I’m surprised you’re even here, after the Luthor in me won out.”

Though it was Kara’s condemnation she expected, it seemed Lena had taken care of that all on her own. Whether she truly examined her motivations and found them wanting, or whether it was simply Kara’s evaluation that turned the tide of her personal war, Lena had the look of a woman bereft of purpose. Non Nocere, as she heard Lena call it, seemed to be abandoned, and with nothing to take its place, the stark reality of her actions must have been undeniable. 

It seemed a loss on top of the cruel hand already dealt by the Monitor. The brother Lena killed survived, and usurped the hardwon seat of affection she’d held in National City’s consciousness. The words that scraped from an embittered throat were full of a familiar self-loathing, and provided Kara an opening she could finally walk through. 

“You know, I always liked L-Corp better,” she offered quietly. 

She stepped further into the office, edging around the corner of the desk towards the visitor’s chair. Lena’s gaze followed the motion, but the lack of protest emboldened Kara enough to offer a tentative smile.

“It had a better ring to it.”

When Lena huffs another mirthless laugh, Kara dared to sweep her cape to one side, and perch carefully on the edge of the visitor chair. “And it had more heart.”

Lena nodded, swallowing thickly. “It’s been the hardest pill to swallow: all the work of the past three years, all the progress I made in being a force for good… it’s all gone, like it never even existed.”

“Not entirely,” Kara disagreed softly. She allowed her shoulders to bow slightly, and noticed the motion reflected in Lena’s own shoulders. In that moment, Kara realized that it was the first time that she was appearing to Lena Luthor as Kara. 

Not Supergirl, not Kara Zor el, not even Kara Danvers, but some amalgamation of all three that Lena was somehow able to recognize. 

This time when Kara smiled, she poured all of herself into it.

“It’s still in you. All those hardships-- the victories and the losses-- all that struggle… it shaped you. And this world is better to have you in it. Even with Lex Luthor sharing this reality with us, it wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Lena gazed at her with eyes softer than Kara’s seen in a long time. Even before Lex’s break out, before the Children of Liberty, she couldn’t remember the last time Lena truly smiled. Had it truly been that long? Perhaps Lena wasn’t the first one to abandon their friendship after all.

With a deep breath, Kara continued. 

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Lena. Not telling you the truth was the biggest one I’ve ever made, but you, Lena, will never be one of them. Your friendship means everything to me, and I hate the fact that my secret made you think that I don’t love you. You are one of the most important people in my life, and you have helped me through some of the darkest moments in my life, without even realizing it.

“You have my love, Lena. Even when you took Myriad, even when you tried to use it-- it hurt so much because I loved you. And because I knew your actions came from a place of pain-- pain that _I_ caused. I promise you I will do whatever it takes to make you feel like you’re back on that summer hill. If you’ll let me.”

At that, Lena’s gaze dimmed. “I don’t know.”

“Please, Lena--”

“I don’t know if there won’t always be a part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said softly. “A part of me that wonders what part of you I haven’t earned.”

Ducking her head, Kara nodded solemnly. “I know. I know, and I will always be sorry I gave you reason to doubt. But I promise, you have all of me. I’ll share anything you want to know. I won’t hide anything else from you. I promise.”

Lena eyed her warily, uncertainty written clearly in the crinkle in her forehead, the minute tuck of her bottom lip. But when she released a quiet breath, Kara spied a kernel of hope in Lena’s eyes.

“What’s the biggest thing you wanted to tell me, but couldn’t?”

Lena didn’t need to elaborate. Kara doubted she ever would ever need to mention the betrayal again. It would forever be between them now-- no matter how many bridges they built over it, or how many footpaths they carved into it, it would never disappear. 

Kara took a moment, and when she glanced up a soft smile found its way to her lips. 

“For years I had to hide who and what I was. After a while, I got so good at it, I became invisible. Even after Supergirl introduced herself to the world, I was still invisible-- people who didn’t know who I was overlooked the bumbling assistant, and the people who did know always seemed to see someone… super. I didn’t feel _seen_.”

She still remembered the relief of being able to share who she was, even with a select few. It wasn’t until Lena looked at her the day they first met that Kara realized that her friends-- even Alex-- had stopped looking at her for _her._

“Not until you.”

Silence followed, but it was a silence that warmed as Lena stared, her features open as she finally got a glimpse of Kara’s truth-- a hint of the warm sun she’d shone on Kara’s life in return.

It was as good a place as any for Kara to call it a night. She rose without another word, and offered a soft nod before heading towards the balcony. She paused at the threshold when Lena called quietly after her.

“Coffee tomorrow?”

Kara turned, heart thundering in her chest. She nodded, unable to keep her lips from spreading into a full, unfettered smile.

“I’d love that.” Her bottom lip caught hesitantly between her teeth. “My place or yours?”

“Noonan’s.”

Before Kara could flinch from the blunt request for neutral territory, Lena’s head tilted in a playful slant. “They have the sticky buns.”

Kara’s grin broadened. 

“Noonan’s it is.”


End file.
